
CHASER 



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Class ____E_a.^535 
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COP^'RIGRT DEPOSIT. 






BY 
KENNETH RAND 

Author of "The t)irge of 
the Sea-Children," etc. 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1914 






coptright, 1914 
Shebmak^ Fbench 6* Company 

JAN -2 J9I5 
©C1,A393051 



X 



TO 

2C. A. (§. 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

Of the following poems, " The Rainbow Chaser " 
first appeared in The Smart Set; " The Dream 
Minstrel " in Lippincott's; " The Half-Poet/' 
"The Lonely Road/' "The Sun-Worshipper/' 
"Out on the Paths of Wonder/' "A Pagan's 
Creed " and " The Liar " in The Yale Literary 
Magazine; " The Blind Gypsy " in The Bellman. 
Thanks are due the editors of these publications 
for permission to reprint. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Rainbow Chaser 1 

A Pagan's Creed 3 

The Liar 5 

The Sun-worshipper 7 

The Lonely Road 9 

The Blind Gypsy 10 

'* Out on the Paths of Wonder" . . .11 

The Seer l* 

The Dream Minstrel 15 

Reaction 17 

The Ballad of the Red Fool . . . . 18 

Jack o' Visions 21 

Faunus at the Cross 23 

A Harbor Song 26 

A Wayside Parable 28 

The Sorrow-eater 29 

Vesper Song on the Open Road ... 30 

Atheism 32 

A Financial Transaction 33 

The Old Lovers 34 

A Western Ocean Lyric 35 

The Satirist S6 

In a Convent Garden 38 

The Degenerate Speaks 40 

Psyche Kardiou 42 

A Vagabond's Prayer to Life .... 43 

The Pencil Peddler 45 

The Old Voyagers 46 

Ennuye 48 



PAGE 

The Exile 49 

Outcast 50 

A Young Man's Prayer 52 

Dust 53 

The Cabin-boys 54 

The Misanthrope 57 

The Departure 59 

Propemptikon 61 

Dosta! 63 

To A Half-bred Mare That Died ... 64 

The Penalties 66 

The True Magic 67 

The Children's Fleets 68 

The Smoke-flag 70 

Sonnet 71 

The Philanderer 72 

Rodripe/n 73 

To a Poet Who Died Young 75 

LYRICS FROM THE SCHERIAN 

I The Outlander's Song .... 79 

II The Song op the Harbor-maidens 80 

III Serenade 81 

IV Echo Song 82 



PRELUDE 
THE HALF-POET 

Because a Palm is laid across my lips 

When most the phrases clamor to be sung, 

I may not ape the ready love that slips 

Like beggar's patter from a smoother tongue; 

I blame, who envy: yet, beneath the Hand, 

The silence speaks to those that understand. 

Gold of the sun, and wonder of the days ! 

Murrain on life, to lend but half a voice! 
How may I bear the rapture and amaze 

Of loving, while the very clods rejoice? 
Yet may I speak my part, when planets see 
The dim Hand leave my dumb lips spirit-free. 



THE RAINBOW CHASER 

I've followed my restless heart 

To the uttermost ends of earth — 
New stars arise in alien skies, 

Yet what is my roving worth? 
Have I wasted my wealth of years 

In a profitless wayside mart, 
And garnered a crop of rue and tears 

From heritage-seeds of dearth? 
Aye, the way is over-long, 

And the road is ever new — 
It may be right or it may be wrong 

And my love be false or true — 
So long as the rainbow hold. 

And its glittering arch extend, 
I'm off for the pot of fairy gold 

On a road without an end ! 

On a road without an end — 

Though Fate he harsh or kind — 

Ah^ Love may sleep and eyes may weep. 
But we've left the world hehmd! 

I've followed my fleeting love 

From the east to the luring west. 

And north and south through flood and drouth 
I've carried my soul's unrest. 

Have I bartered my house and home. 
And my hopes of Heaven above, 

[1] 



For a castle built of fairy foam 

And a maiden's merry jest? 
Aye, my palace of a dream 

May be over far away — 
Ye know, who follow the rainbow-gleam, 

How dear is the price ye pay ! 
Ye know, and yet ever bold. 

Wherever the trail may trend, 
Ye're off for the pot of fairy gold 

On a road without an end ! 

On a road without an end — 

With never a goal to -find — 
Ah, Love may die and so may /, 

But we've left the world behind! 



[2] 



A PAGAN'S CREED 

A FLOW of golden shadows, love and laughter, 

And gleam of summer tears ; 
Bright spectres born of sunlight — and then 
after 

Come the dead years. 

For what is life without the loss and winning — 

The lure of lidded glance, 
The ecstasy of joyous-hearted sinning, 

The shadow-dance 

By moonlight down an ilex -hidden hollow 

Of mountain solitudes, 
Where the dear ghosts of dead Bacchantes fol- 
low 

Through haunted woods? 

Life is a pagan, dancing in the glamour 

Of ruddy sunset-light, 
Who scorns the sequel to the revel's clamor — 

Tears in the night. 

So, though the years bring dearth of easy par- 
don. 

And wealth of barren ground, 
Still let the torchlight waver down the garden, 

The cymbals sound — 

[3] 



Till, through the panting, bare-limbed festal 
madness, 

With the red morning-glow 
Comes at the last the clear-ejed, cynic sadness 

The wise Gods know. 



[4] 



THE LIAR 

I WROUGHT me a lyric of fire and fear, 
And called on the world to heed — 

Till strong men blenched at my haggard face 
And shuddered, but would not read. 

So I stole me the gold of the mines of Joy 

And fashioned a conscious lie — 
And they gave me the wreath of the kings of 
Song 

And prayed that I might not die ! 

(For the lie that I wrought was as old as the 
world 

And dear as the vision of Heaven — 
Of the crimson lure of a maiden's lips 

And the myth of a sin forgiven !) 

But my heart was sick, and my soul grew less, 
With the light of my failing days. 

Because I had lied to my Knowledge-God 
For the pottage of human praise. 

O I clung to the rim of the cliffs of Hell 

And called on an empty Name — 
Till there dropped the tears of a weeping Truth 

And saved my soul from the flame. 



[5] 



So I hid my soul in a maiden's hair, 
And climbed to a clearer view — 

And I found I had lied to a lying God, 
And the myth I had sung — was true! 



[6] 



THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 

O PASSING gods of passing creeds 

That droop and die with mortal men ! 

Their ages-long procession leads 

Through darkness to the Sun again — 

Poor sorry ghosts that wheel and flee 

Like shadows on a wind-swept sea. 

For since we bear the yoke of Faith 
And cringe to feel the goad of Doubt, 

Our tortured Reason weaves a Wraith 
Of Godhead we would die without — 

A painted dream of carven plinths 

And ghosts in man-wrought labyrinths. 

Toys of a thought! The fortune-wheel 

Of myriad vague existences ! 
Yet hear we not Thy challenge peal 

Across the blue-lit distances? 
The bannered shout at morn that stirred 
Our oldest fathers with Thy word. 

For art Thou not the Primal God — 
The Sun that watched the youth of Man 

That touched the earth his children trod, 
And bade it live, ere gods began ? 

The fertile ploughland laughs that sees 

The births and deaths of deities ! 



[7] 



Thy fingers bless the swelling bud, 
Thy feet are gold across the hill — 

I find Thy shrine in deepest wood, 
Thy magic in each leaping rill ; 

And death itself Thy pantomime — 

A scene-shift on the stage of Time. 

So bow ye then to nameless lords 
Ye may not feel, or see, or hear — 

And bind the Soul in precept-cords 
For sacrifice to curtained Fear ! 

Brother y thy creed is strong to save? 

I cry thee comfort in thy grave! 



[8] 



THE LONELY ROAD 

I THINK thou waitest, Love, beyond the Gate — 
Eager, with wind-stirred ripples in thy hair; 

I have not found thee, and the hour is late, 
And harsh the weight I bear. 

Far have I sought, and flung my wealth of years 
Like a young traveler, gay at careless inns — 

See how the wine-stain whitens 'neath the tears 
My burden wins ! 

And wilt thou know me. Love, with bended back, 
Or wilt thou scorn me, in so drear a guise? 

I have a wealth of sorrows in my pack, 
One lonely prize — 

Thy dream — and dross of sin. . . . O, dim the 
fields — 

I may not find thee in so dark a land — 
Yet I await what hope the turning yields 

And beg with empty hand. 



[9] 



THE BLIND GYPSY 

My world is girt with a rampart of wonder and 
shadow, 
Sunless I wander, forlorn, on the barrens of 
Time and Space — 
With only the scent of the sun on the heather, 
the song o'er the meadow. 
The dust of the highway warm on my feet, 
and the wind in my face. 

The roads that I knew are the paths of an in- 
finite terror, 
Treacherous, threading morasses of peril, 
abysses of night ; 
And only the feel of the wind and the heat, in 
my mazes of error. 
To whisper of dawn or of noon, and the dear 
lost rapture of light. 

Yet, with the sun and the breeze and the dust 
on the highway, 
Only, O Lord, to feel ! — and I cling to Thy 
garment's fold — 
And the snapping of fires that I may not see, 
by the hedge in the byway. 
Is the crackle of flame-new stars, and the 
clangor of gates of gold. 



[10] 



" OUT ON THE PATHS OF WONDER " 

Out on the paths of wonder, 
Where the mountains sit with their feet in the 
white sea-foam, 
And the wayward lightnings roam 
In their curtained caves of fire, 
Till the wings of the Hags of Night are riven 

asunder 
And the sea is pale as the rags of a tattered 
shroud — 
Under the star-split dome of driven cloud 
I walk with my dead desire. 

In the deeps of the blue-lit spaces, 
Where the Master of Shadow is lord, and the 
Silence nods, 
The glow of thine eyes, O love, is a flame of 

rapture, 
And the sound of thy whisper the music of 

heavenly places, 
And the net of thy tresses a silken snare to 
capture 
The hearts of the careless gods. 

Thy feet are light on the ramparts of earth 

and heaven. 
Thy limbs are wet with the spray of the Seas 

of Years, 

[11] 



Thy cheeks are gay with the flush of the Rose 

love-given, 
And salt with the wine of tears. 
Thy lips are warm and sweet with thy long 

bereaving, 
And thy breast is soft with the pain of thy 

love and grieving. 

Over the lift and the send 
Of the sea, till we win to the innermost heart of 
the maze 
Of the web of the Years and the Days ! 
Till the riddle of Time 
Shall ravel and fade and dissolve to the utter- 
most end, 
And the heights that we climb. 
The wind-pitted mountains of Air, 
Shall flame with the crown and the splendor and 
triumph eternal 

Of death, till I cover my face with the mesh of 
thy hair, 
At the glory supernal ! 
For the Word of the Lord of the Gloom shall 

be drowned in singing. 
And the shores of the Ocean of Terror re- 
sound with voices. 
And the vaults and the arches of bottomless 
Shadow be ringing 
With the song of an infinite gladness, 
[12] 



Till the lowliest depth of the shambles of Sin 
rejoices 
In the grip of thy great love-madness. 
And the mightiest Gods of the Shadow shall flee 
at the light of thine eyes, 
Beloved, who saith: 
If ye wander with Love in the gardens of Para- 
dise, 
Shall ye flinch at the fingers of Death? 

Out on the paths of wonder. 
Where the Master of Shadow is throned on the 

sea, and the Silence nods, 
I walk with my dead desire in the caves of the 
sleeping thunder. 
And mock at the grim-eyed gods. 



[13] 



THE SEER 

I MAY not tread the kindly ways 
Where trudge the feet of men, 

Nor know the pride of honest praise 
Or flush of shame again ; 

My hearth-fire is the fairy blaze 
That flits above the fen. 

In that the gift is mine to see 
A hand's-breadth i' the gloom, 

And glimpse through curtained mystery 
The dim To-morrow loom, 

I walk the woods of fantasie 
Where fairy flowers bloom. 

O I have wept when all were gay. 
And Youth and Love were wed, 

For I have seen the death-sark sway 
Above the bridegroom's head — 

The dead-hole gape across the way 
His eager feet must tread. 

Then what the gift (as mortals tell) 

To walk the racing tide, 
Or with the ghosts at Olaf's Well 

On Lammas-floods to ride. 
When I have heard the shadow-knell 

And living men have died.? 

[14] 



THE DREAM MINSTREL 

Across the world from Fairyland the winds 
have blown a song to me — 
(Harper, wake your magic in the old grey 
hall) 
And the sunlight on the flagging is a patch of 
tattered blazonry, 
Shred o' fading glory on the dull drab wall. 
Turn again — turn again — see the weave un- 
ravelling — 
(Harper, set you back again the grey Fates' 
loom ) 
Till the fields are gay with April and the heart 
has ceased a-sorrowing — 
(Lovers in the orchard, with the apple-trees 
in bloom!) 

Across the world from Fairyland the little 
winds have flung to me 
Petals of the wild rose, riotous and red. 
And the scent of summer woodland where the 
sun-embroidered tracery 
Gilds the moldy carpet of the old year's 
dead; 
Scent of happy valleys, and the treasure of the 
marigold, — 
(Happy, sunny valleys in the Provinces of 
Dream) 

[15] 



Hark the whisper, lilting, " Love, my heart is 
ever thine to hold — 
E'mr and forever, till the last starts gleam! " 

" Ever and forever — " but the wind is o'er the 
hills to me, 
(The blue hills o' Faerie, O harper in the 
hall) 
Luring on to follow down the shadow-lane of 
memory, 
Memory as faded as the sunlight on the wall. 
Turn again — weave again — set the loom 
ahead again — 
Summer-gold is darkening to hot, blood red; 
" Ever and forever — forever — " Ah, the love 
o' men ! 
(Harper, still your magic, ere my heart 
droop dead !) 



[16] 



REACTION 

Last night methinks our madness won to 
Truth — 
There in the starlit temple of the sky — 
Stripped for the nonce our cynic robes of 

Youth, 
Let slip our creeds, and left but You and Me 
Stark on the land's-end of philosophy. 

To-day we meet with faces wrung and wry — 
Poor harlequins in masks of sanity ! 



[17] 



THE BALLAD OF THE RED FOOL 

The Jester laughed at the castle gate 
(The stone was grey, and the iron cold) 

And sang of a monarch good and great 
Who flung a Jester a purse of gold. 
{Mighty the king, and wise, and hold!) 

The Baron sat at his window high 

(0 his hair was white, hut the month was 
May) 
And marked a hawk in the empty sky, 

And a budding tree, and a lamb at play. 

{Ragged the Fool, hut the song was gay.) 

The Jester shifted his scarlet cloak 

{The rohe was torn, hut the cloth was red) 

And rattled his battered staff of oak 

On the barred portcullis above his head; 
And " Ho ! " cried he. " Are ye drunk or 
dead ? 

" For the gate is wide, and the yeomen sleep — " 
(0 the lord was free with his heef and heer) 

" And only the rooks are guarding the keep, 
With all Romance at the portal here ; 
Is the knight so great, that he scorns his 
gear.f' " 



[18] 



The yeomen snored in the sunlit court, 

And the Baron dreamed at his window high, 

As the Jester crept through a sally-port 
And cast about with a searching eye. 
{Drowsy the mind from the sapphire sky!) 

He filled him full with the Baron's wine 

(The grapes are plump on the Spanish hills) 

And crowned the yeomen with columbine 
And wreathed a vine in the window-grills. 
(The wine-cup spattered in purple rills.) 

He found him pens and a horn of ink 

And parchment fallow for tithe and tax, 

And wrote him a song to the goblet's clink, 
While the lizards crept from the pavement 

cracks — 
(The sun was bright on an idle axe.) 

He wrote him a song of a stalwart knight 
(0 a knight is sad for the want of a maid) 

Who followed the lure of a gay love-light 
Over the wide world, unafraid. 
(0 merry the carol of shield and blade!) 

He weighted the scroll with an empty cup. 
And left it plain on the Penman's board — 

Where the flagons at hand held never a sup. 
(Heavy the book that the Penman pored. 
And heady the wine that Barons afford!) 

[19] 



The Jester reeled in a tipsy dance 

And hummed a tune of a knight and lass ; 

Quoth he, " For the wine I have paid Romance, 
And a stave to carol at Michaelmas ! " 
(O the Spanish wine in the crystal glass!) 

So he laughed away through the portal's gloom 
(Th^ sun was gold and the shy was blue) 

While the Baron dreamed in his tower room 
Of a joust, and a lady fair and true. 
{The love was old, hut the dream was new.) 

Then the Penman yawned and blinked and 
stirred 
(0 flagons of wine and a hunch of bread!) 
And his thought was slow as a wounded bird, 
And he dreamed he had written the song that 

he read, 
By the grace of God and a muddled head ! 

They gave him a wreath and a purse of gold 
(0 songs of jousts and a lady fair!) 

And a velvet mantle to turn the cold. 
And he sat at meat in a carven chair, 
With the laurel twined in his scanty hair. 

The Jester slept in the ditch below 

(0 wine of Spain, with its fire and pride!) 

And what ever came of him none may know — 
But the Penman sat at the Baron's side. 
{Sing hey, Romance and the world so wide!) 
[20] 



JACK O' VISIONS 

Jack o' Visions, dreaming in the firelight, 
What's the picture in the embers' glow? 

'Tis hut the flame of "wasted swmmers, fading. 
To die in winter snow. 

And what care you for summer and its wasting. 
Grey-headed Jack, who hugs the dulling fire? 

*Tis but that Youth is such a sorry spendthrift. 
And dreams are his desire. 

And may they not be worthy of the spending, 
O cynic Jack, the dreams he never won? 

Thet/ are not worth one magic day in April 
A -lilt with wind and sun. 

Ah, Jack, but see them, how they flutter gleam- 

Like tropic birds that sailors trade for gold ! 
/' faith, they be as fleet and hard to capture. 
And droop in autumn cold. 

Then say what Youth may buy with all his 
riches. 
His Ophir-horde of newly-minted years ! 
Why, let him purchase Love and War and 
Laughter, 
And wine of honest tears. 

[21] 



What say you? 'Tis a dole we hold in com- 
mon — 

The draught of Life we do not need to buy. 
Alasy yet there he many who go thirsting y 

Nor prize it till they die. 



[2^] 



FAUNUS AT THE CROSS 

As I followed the feet of the sun on the wind- 
swept hills, 
When the light-flung gold of the spring was 
gaj on the grass, 
I caught through the careless laughter of loos- 
ened rills 
From the church in the valley the drone of 
the priests at Mass. 

And I looked at the dun grey House, and the 
heavens above, 
While I stood with the wind in my face and 
the sun on my head. 
And learned of the passion of Christ (but I 
dreamed of Love) 
And the bright-lipped wounds (were they red 
as the rose was red?) 

Then my heart leaped up like a stag at the 
shadow of fear. 
For I glimpsed in a vision the loom of the 
Altar of Pain — 
And the flare of its terror was torture to blast 
and sear, 
Yet fair was the snow-white brow with its 
crimson stain ! 

[23] 



So I plucked me a red, red wreath where the 
sunbeams slept — 
" Let Beauty to Beauty be brought as a gar- 
land," I cried, 
And I covered the Thorns with a chaplet of 
roses, and wept 
For the grace of the blood-stained limbs that 
had drooped and died — 

When sudden the folds of the Vision were sun- 
dered, and there 
At the shrine of the Pale-Browed God in my 
terror I stood, 
And the satin-skinned petals fell slow through 
the spice-drugged air. 
And redder they lay on the stones than the 
painted blood. 

O I shrank from the grim-mouthed priests and 
their harrying spell, 
Till the curses ran out from the Cross and 
pursued as I fled ; 
But I bent to the rose-wreathed Christ in a last 
farewell, 
And the pure lips flashed to a smile and were 
soft and red — 

While a whisper as light as the whorls of the 
censers' smoke 
Wrapped me in wonder and crept to the 
doors of my ears — 
[24] 



Fear not! Be it grace of the Rose, or the 
strength of the Oak, 

Through both is my heart, when ye how he- 
fore Beauty with tears! " 



[25] 



A HARBOR SONG 

There's a schooner in tlie offing, with the sun- 
set in her sails — 

She's black as death across the west where slow 
the splendour fails ; 

There's an evil wind from out the east that 
backs against the day, 

But she's shaking out her headsails for the 
saunter down the bay. 

There's a trail of ruddy cloth-of-gold that runs 

to meet the Sun — ;- 
The path is plain before her, but her road is 

never done ; 
She may not stay for prize or pay, for love or 

law or hire, 
When she harks to old Ulysses in his Islands of 

Desire ! 

O the hills that fade behind her know the touch 
of fairy feet, 

The pipes of Pan are lilting clear from field to 
village street; 

And Spring is in the orchard-row, though sad- 
dened hearts may break — 

But she's dropping down the harbor with her 
shadow on her wake. 



[26] 



So it's hide away your hope, my love, and lay 
away your fears ; 

Your dreams are all behind you, with the rap- 
ture and the tears ; 

'Tis a sorry trick of tops'ls — to catch the sun- 
set so — 

When dying Love-imll-Jceep-him turns to Love- 
has-hade-him-go I 

O, it's roll her down to westward, for the prom- 
ise of the Sun ! 

Can lure of woman hold the hearts the mother 
sea has won? 

They may not stay for prize or pay, for love 
or law or hire, 

When they hark to old Ulysses in his Islands of 
Desire ! 



[27] 



A WAYSIDE PARABLE 

A WIND ran over the western hill 

And the dust of the road was gay, 
But the little smoke of the wayside fire 

Was lost in the twilight-grey. 
Said the Dust, " There is hope for the morn," 

Said the Fire, " Ere the morn, I die," 
And its ghost rose up to the vaulted roof 

Of the temple-hall of the sky. 

The wind slipped over the purpling crest 

With a mantle of trailing cloud, 
And spread the Dust on the sleeping earth 

In a great grey tattered shroud. 
And the hill was lost in a veil 

Of the dark wet hair of the rain, 
Till the spark of a Fire hailed the quickening 
east 

And the dim smoke curled again. 

The wind strode in with the lifting sun 

And the smoke of the fire was gay — 
But the Dust was dead in the silver pools 

That laughed with the laughing day. 
Sang the wind, " Did ye fear, ere ye drooped 
and died — 

Did ye doubt what the Prophets said? " 
And the new Fire snapped on its chrysalis-ash, 

" Not I ! But when was / dead? " 

[28] 



THE SORROW-EATER 

Why dost thou play 'tis thy dead love's heart 
That beats in the gloom beside thee? 

Surely thou learnest the minstrel's art, 
So close in thy dream to hide thee ! 

Why dost thou play 'tis thy dead love's hair 
That nets with its silk thy shoulder? 

(Tricks of a harlot not overly fair — 
Ah, brother, thy heart grows colder!) 

Why dost thou play 'tis thy dead love's kiss 
So fresh on thy lips and burning? 

— Peace! I have tasted the flame-hot bliss 
That comes with a griefs returning. 



[29] 



VESPER SONG ON THE OPEN ROAD 

As a ribbon of raw red copper the road runs 

into the west, 
Looping the flanks of the mountain-ranks like 

a chain on a maiden's breast — 
The road that swerves and dips and curves till 

it drops to the far sea-rim, 
Where the trampling feet of the breakers beat 
in a marching battle-hymn. 
For it's my love. 
Let tJie stars above 
That burn on the bier of Day, 

Blazon our path through the Chaos- 
wrath, 
Ten million worlds away! 

The rim of the Shield of the Master sinks, but 

His helmet-plumes are high — 
Flaunting in crimson and taunting the shadows 

that creep to the zenith-sky ; 
The road is a ribbon of Romany red in the hair 

of the gypsy earth, 
And the trembling seas on a loom of breeze are 
veiling her heart's unworth. 
For it's my love. 
When the stars above 
Are witching our feet astray, 

Fear ye to wend to the Cosmos-End, 
Ten million worlds away? 
[30] 



The silver spear of the horned moon is spurring 

the steeds of Night, 
And it's haste, ah, haste, ere the sun-gold waste 

and wane in her altar-light ! 
For though love-shod through the paths untrod 

of the valley of Death we run. 
Yet hand-in-hand we may breathless stand, and 
weep that the road be done! 
For it's O my love. 
Let the stars above 
That hum on the bier of Day, 

Lead us to meet at the Master's feet. 
Ten million worlds away! 



[31] 



ATHEISM 

I DREAMED One night that I was lost among 
The sounding mazes of an endless vault, 
Deep-wrought from living stone, where spirits 
halt 
Their fearful flitting, and where grinning hung 
Dry, monstrous skeletons, and corpses clung 
To crosses for some unforgotten fault — 
While dumb lips prayed that hidden Gods 
exalt 
Accursed souls long since from Heaven 
flung. . . . 

But lo, deep in the shambles' midmost cell 

There shone a lamp, and by it, stern and 
stark, 
Amidst a sea of books, a figure sat 
That scorned the light and faced the empty 
dark — 
That seemed a God itself — yet could not tell 
What in the shadows it was staring at. 



[32] 



A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION 

" I'm in horrible want," quoth the shivering 
bard. 

" Can't I manage to raise a loan? 
I've some property left, though to risk it is 
hard, 

For 'tis all I can call my own. 
But hey, for the red of the wine and the rose ! — 

I'll give you an ample gain — 
If I don't pay up, you may straight foreclose 

On my wonderful Castle in Spain ! " 

So the Usurer World gave him treasure o' 
dreams 

On the pledge of his mortgaged towers ; 
But he couldn't pay up, for he squandered, it 
seems, 

Every ducat on wine and flowers. 
Vet the grim old Broker, with never a tear, 

Charged an interest-rate of Pain — 
Evicted the Poet, and then (as I hear) 

Moved into the Castle in Spain! 



[33] 



THE OLD LOVERS 

We meet in a sorrowful land 

That is hard by the gates of death — 
A smile, and a touch of the hand, 
As the sunset's flaming brand 
Flickers and fails in the west 

With the day-wind's dying breath — 
'Tis the most we may dare, and best. 

They say that the passion is cold — 

That the flame is dead in the heart ; 
" Good friends, that have loved of old. 
Once more, in the sunset-gold. 
Meet with a clasp of the hand. 

Nod and dream and depart — " 
Ah, love, 'tis a sorrowful land ! 

I that have walked in a cloud. 

You that have wept in the sun — 

Wrinkled and wearied and bowed. 

Cover the wound! Be proud! 

Laugh — be it Hell the while — 

That the world, ere the Hell be done, 

May watch with a kindly smile. 



[34] 



A WESTERN OCEAN LYRIC 

There's a wind that treads the water 

With tramp of sullen feet, 
And grim and gray the westers play 

With knives of driven sleet; 
Our bows are shod with silver, 

But purple-dark and cold 
The shadows fly across the sky 

To dim the sunset-gold. 

O cursed be all the breezes 

That hedge the west in cloud, 
And twice and thrice, the crusted ice 

That clings to stay and shroud ! 
Against the light the foremast 

Is bright with frozen mail — 
The decks are gray with flying spray 

And rough with spattered hail. 

There's a fog that numbs the ocean 

To smoky deeps where hide 
The noisy hosts of hooting ghosts 

That warn from overside ; 
O cursed be all the shadows 

Of bank and shoal and bar. 
And send us clear the silver spear 

That arms an honest star ! 



[35] 



THE SATIRIST 

I TOOK a snatch of sun-wrack, and a whifF 
Of south-wind laden with the drone of surf 
That booms on golden shores, where palm-roots 

run 
In tangled webs to taste the milk-warm wave: 
(So keeps the Sea her children-isles of dream, 
And calls her exiled dreamers home again.) 
Of these I wove a song — and all the years 
Fled ghost-like, vanished, dropped me swift to 

youth. 
And gave me back Hesperides. Ay, Love, 
That left me, laughing, seons past, and hid — 
(Bare, sun-kissed shoulders glinting through 

the maze 
Of rata twining 'mid the tree-trunks!) — 

seemed 
To loose for me the dark flood of her hair 
And drown me in it. . . . — When I strove to 

sing 
My song to other men, and let the world 
Share but a fraction of my joy and pain, 
What said they.'* " Lo, the song is old and 

sad — 
Why more of it.^ 'Twas well sung long ago. 
To smoother music." So I took a bar 
Of blood-wrought steel, and spun it into thread 
Bright, cold, and sharp as dust of diamonds. 

Then 

[36] 



I wove It on a loom of artifice, 

Lent it a gargoyle's grin, called it a song. 

And turned it loose. And all the world cried 

" HaUf 
Here sings a hard whew voice will never die! " 



[37] 



IN A CONVENT GARDEN 

Young love, strong love, meeting 'mid the 

roses ! 
Dare ye think of loving, where the plaster Mary 
poses ? 
Better Pan should roister 
In the shade of hallowed cloister ! — 
Idle droops the rosary — what paganry dis- 
closes ! 

True love, new love, dancing down the ages — 
Mocking at the precepts and the parables of 
sages ! 
Balance they the blisses 
Of a hundred stolen kisses 
Snatched while Mother Beatrice was nodding 
o'er the pages ? 

Old love, bold love, weary with its madness ! 
Mock ye, then, at April with its glamour and 
its gladness? 
Since ye know the sorrows 
Of a hundred spent To-morrows, 
Dream ye that your day is done, and fading 
into sadness? 



[38] 



Sad love, mad love ! Leap ye, then, to waking? 
Light ye bear the burden of the grieving and 
forsaking! 
Lips that sip of laughter 
Learn the tang of sorrow after — 
Learn, and drink in silence, while the gayer 
hearts are breaking! 



[39] 



THE DEGENERATE SPEAKS 

I SEE you pass like a wayward god in a robe of 
wonder, 
Prince of the realms of Youth, with the flame 
in your eyes — 
Shoulders that jostle the hats of the mob, till 
it wavers asunder, 
Splitting in torrents of hurrying faces, drab 
as the skies. 

The clouds are low where the clanging streets 
of the demon-city 
Raise to the heavens the reek of their grooved 
ravines, 
And you come like a sprite of the sun, with a 
present of pity — 
Pity that stings like a helot's lash, in our 
hell-demesnes ! 

Ay, saw you me too ? — with the leaden stare 
and the drooping shoulder — 
Furtive, mean, with the brand of the Rat in 
my face? 
— Weary with years ? By the years, it is you 
are the older — 
You, with the youth-hot passionate eyes, and 
the dancer's grace! 



[40] 



The chance was mine, and the fault was mine, 
and the sorrow and sighing, 
But I was weary, too weary to grieve, from 
the first ; 
Ay, and the gateway of Peace and Forgetting, 
that comforts the dying. 
Careless the Gods left wide — I was mothered 
accurst. 

O eyes that follow the cycle of life in eternal 
revolving ! 
Pity, my gay Greek god, the slave on the 
treadmill of Time ! 
Mad ? I am mad with the direst of sanities ! 
This the absolving — - 
That I should dance in the revel of Youth 
like a painted mime. 

The trailing folds of the curtain of Birth are in 
tatters — 
See how the torrents of Time unveil — how 
the lives are massed ! 
What — you would help me? O blindness of 
life ! As if Charity matters — 
Matters to me, with my youth — a century 
deep in the past ! 



[41] 



PSYCHE KARDIOU 

There is a ghost that arms the hearts of men 
Till Death the victor fails, allied with Fear — 
Till Sorrow stoops to comfort, and each tear 

Glints like a dewdrop touched by morn again ; 

Some name it Faith, that lights the darksome 
fen 
Of worldly doubt ; some call it Insight clear ; 
Some Love ; some Reason stark in robes aus- 
tere, 

Or crash of battle down a hostile glen. 

Yet for the war what arms I bear I owe 
To a dim ghost-soul that I may not free. 
That feels the stir of wind, the beat of sea, 

And neither Faith nor Reason, dares to know! 

What would I be without my spectre? Lo ! 
A craven, clutching at Eternity ! 



im 



A VAGABOND'S PRAYER TO LIFE 

Life, for the span of a day, 

For a morn, for an hour. 
Ere I am weary and old 

Give me power to pay — 
Pay with the red sun-gold 

And the dew on the flower. 
Debts that I owe to the gods 

Of the lonely way. 

In that I dared it alone 

Through the sun and the shadow. 
Deeming the House of the Skies 

But the roof of mine own, 
Give me at length to surprise 

With the lark o'er the meadow 
Themes of the songs of the gods 

By the winds new-blown. 

This — and my father, the Sun, 

For a friend, for a neighbor — 
Lending the world for the field 

Of a gay fight won — 
Lo, with the dawning revealed 

Lie the goals of my labor! 
Roads that are marked by the gods 

Ere my strength be done. 



[43] 



Yet, when I wake to the day 

That shall dawn on my garden, 
In that I journeyed alone 

Give me friends, to repay ! 
Friends with the sins to atone 

That shall win me their pardon 
Debtors with me to the gods 

Of the lonely way ! 



[44] 



THE PENCIL PEDDLER 

Earth and its glory, the rain and the sunlight 

on oceans unsounded, 
Life and its magic, the pain and the pleasure, 
the rapture unbounded, 
Love and its scented abysses of torture rose- 
hidden — 
All except Death have I known, that alone 
was forbidden. 

Passers that brush me, nor heed me, the cripple 

that squats in the gutter, 
Would ye could read, 'neath the lip's ready pat- 
ter, the curses I mutter! 
Once was I also a Man, in the flush of my 

passion ; — 
Hated, loved, even as you — pitied, too, in 
my fashion ! 

Even as you, O my brothers in masking! And 

this the finale — 
Limping so slowly on leather-shod stumps, may 
I win to the Valley ? 
Fling me a copper — my blessing, that for- 
tune should fall so ; 
Spurn me — and mind not my curses, for 
thus was I, also. 



[45] 



THE OLD VOYAGERS 

There's a trumpet-call at twilight, when the 
world is grey with sorrow — 
Monotones of sorrow where the dimming 
ocean lies — 
And our pallid dead romances are the promise 
of a morrow 
Far and fading into shadow where the last 
flame dies ; 
Far and fading — can ye see it — can ye feel it 
— can ye hear it — 
It is lost beyond the limit of the lost horizon- 
rim ; 
In our day we lived on darkness ! Now the 
light has come to clear it, 
And we brought the light, who loved it — 
would to God we'd left it dim ! 

Would to God we'd left the blankness and the 

mystery and luring 
Of the empty places whispering of Ophir and 

Cathay, 
Of the open, shoreless ocean, with its triumphs 

of enduring. 
And the dawning and the sunset on the lone 

sea-way ! 
Of the magic islands lifting, hiding dim Cibola- 

cities, 

[46] 



Dim and hidden, dream-embattled, golden- 

streeted, silver-walled — 
But we proved them — and we lost them — lend 

us mercy, Lord of Pities ! — 
For it seemed the Earth was endless — could 

we help it — we were called. 

There's a trumpet-call at twilight, but our 
blades are dull and rusted. 
And the caravels are rotting at the Quay of 
Missing Ships, 
And the fever-ridden harbors where we drank 
and died and lusted, 
Lo, they glimmer into nothings with the chan- 
teys on our lips ! 
We are spectres of adventure, but we haunt ye 
till ye need us, 
Though the world is planned and plotted by 
the torment of our wars ; 
We are waiting in the Shadow till our kinsmen 
hear and heed us — 
Till they stamp the Earth beneath them and 
are gay amid the stars! 



[47] 



ENNUYE 



O, ONCE I played at passion well, 

Till all the world believed ; 
And hearts were jealous when I loved, 

And sorrowed when I grieved. 
But deep within me grinned a Self 

That would not be deceived. 

" 0, 'tis a jest," the Spirit laughed, 

" The human trick to steal ! 
Where got you courage for the play? 

I know you cannot feel. 
Oho ! 'Tis such a roaring farce, 

I weep it is not real ! 

" My friend, how won you right to sing, 
Or passion's harp to strum? 

Yet lips had never sung so true 
Had not the heart been dumb ; 

Your fingers never found the chords — 
Aye, what had you become? 

" An infant, babbling silly woes ! — 
So play the mimic through ! 

Be brave ! " But I had lost my mask, 
And could not find a new ; 

And 'twas at best a weary play — 
I wept it had been true. 

[48] 



THE EXILE 

I HAVE known the joy of the upland, the peaka 
and the buttress-hills, 
The rock-sown windy barrens, new-ploughed 
by the 'shares of God ; 
The drone of the harp o' the tempest, and the 
small, clear song of the rills. 
And the crest flame-tipped in the dawning, at 
the touch of an angel's rod — 

I have known the wrath of the upland, the tem- 
pled courts of the clouds, 
The threat of the storm-flung robes of snow 
that drop from the mountain's breast, 
But my heart is sick for the harvest wind, for 
the fields in their tawny shrouds. 
For a lamplit pane, and a plainsman's hearth, 
and — rest. 

O a man can pray in the upland, in the vaulted 
church of the sky. 
And walk with Jove where the Titans raged, 
at the wrath of His face ; 
But I, who am bred to the arch of the stars, I 
will go to the plains to die, 
And tune my heart to the hymn of the storm 
on the floors of space. 



[49] 



OUTCAST 

Love that was light as. a breeze at dawn — 

How should we stoop to fearing? 
Cowards that pander and slaves that fawn — 
Hounds that snufF at the trail we trod — 
We, that are safe on the knees of God, 
Heed we their ill-hid sneering. 
Love that was pure as the dawn? 

Do the will-o'-the-wisp and the witch-fire heed 
What the dull world thinks of the paths they 
lead? 

Nay — let us say 

That the wings of day 
Are ours to wander a world away, 
And not that, driven and shamed and blind, 
We left the sheltering Pale behind ! 

Ah, let us live 

With the bee on the flower — 

Forget and forgive 

With the hurrying hour ! 
Till a love miscalled and a jest misread, 
Till a pampered lie and a truth unsaid, 
Die with the sting of a burnt-out scorn — 
Love that was pure as an April mom ! 

'Twas a half-meant kiss 

And a head on a shoulder — 

At the first but this — 
Yet, suddenly older, 
[50] 



We stood guilt-marked in the world-old Court, 
Where a pious grey rake held the judge's 
chair, 
And were tried for a " crime of the baser sort " 
That the " good " may envy, but scarcely 
dare. . . . 
O heart of my heart, 

Shall the lying creed 
In our world apart 
Bid us hide, or heed? 
Let us laugh, though our motley be beggars' 

tatters ; 
True love, true love, is there aught else matters ? 

Since we have won to the knees of God, 

Why should the world be jealous? 
That there's no return by the road we trod 

Need we the world to tell us? 
Laugh and be gay ! Do the witch-fires heed 
What the dull world thinks of the paths they 

lead? 
We have won unsmirched through the sneers 

and scorn 
Out into Life from a land forlorn, 
Out from the Dark to the blaze of the sun — 
Would you wish, at the ending, the deed undone, 
Love that is pure as an April morn ? 



[51] 



A YOUNG MAN'S PRAYER 

Let me not live, O Time, to be old and weary — 
Thou, who art God of all Gods, and King of 
all Kings — 
Let me not walk like a ghost in the sun, and 
dreary 
Harken with ears long-dead when the wood- 
thrush sings — 

Let me not wake on a day when the pennoned 
morning 
Brightens on eyes unheeding, and cheeks un- 
flushed ; 
Let me not darken the world with my misery, 
scorning 
Joy of the birds, and whisper of wind dawn- 
hushed — 

But let me die with my heart still gay with the 
tourney. 
Facing the Dark with a song on my lips, and 
my feet 
Light on the threshold that calls to the last long 
j ourney 
Over the far blue hills where the highways 
meet! 



[52] 



DUST 

Across the ridge the barren earth runs down — 

Gay, vagrant dust that shifts with every 
breeze — 

Over the hill-crest weaving mysteries, 
Against the sun's face WTeathing thee a crown ! 
Jester of ages, robed in grey and brown, 

See how it wraps thee. Love, with fantasies ! 

Till like a priestess, gold-bathed to the knees, 
Thou standest shimmering in thy saffron gown. 

Dust that is swift to hide or blind or dim, 
Yet that is rose-haze in the sunset-glow ! 

Sweeping across autumnal fields, to skim 

Like wrack o' dreams along each barren row. 

Dare we despise it? Look ye, down the sky 

Drop with the moon the star-dust nebulae. 



[53] 



THE CABIN-BOYS 

In the days when old New England was the 
half of all the nation, 
And the Injuns and Virglnnys made the bal- 
ance of the land, 
We were starting life as farmers — and we 
worked to beat creation 
Tilling barren-gutted valleys, clearing boul- 
ders, ploughing sand. 
We were humble sons of farmers. 
Simple, slaving sons of farmers, 
Sons of heavy-handed farmers, who were hon- 
est as could be — 
But we heard a tale of pirates 
(Good old brazen-hearted pirates!) 
And we wanted to be pirates, so we ran away 
to sea ! 

Aye, we heard a tale of islands ringed with pearl 
on seas of beryl. 
Where the dawning leaped to meet you, like 
a lover, from the night. 
And of golden-streeted cities hid in jungles gay 
with peril. 
Where the rivers lured to follow with the 
word of new delight ; 
Aye, we heard a tale of cities, 
Hundred-gated wonder-cities, 

[54] 



Mystic, lost, Cibola-cities, tales as true as 
true could be — 
All the yarns of bright adventure, 
(Ever-new-and-old Adventure!) 
And the whisper of its wonder drew us seek- 
ing out to sea. 

So we tramped away to Marblehead, to Salem 
and to Glo'ster — 
(O, just to snifF the tar and see the rocking 
riding-lights !) 
But Fortuna ran before us till we followed, 
found, and lost her 
Like a vision in the doldrums of forbidden 
island-heights ! 
Aye, we dropped away to seaward — 
Wing-and-wing we swept to seaward — 
And the mate, he was a pirate, just as plain 
as plain could be ; 
But we never found an ingot — 
Not a single, blessed ingot ! — 
Though they glittered through our fancy like 
the sunrise on the sea. 

Now the wind is fair from south'ard, and the 
schooners in the offing 
Are breaking out their tops'ls for the venture 
down the bay. 
And the brass-bejewelled liners in their elegance 
are scoffing 

[65] 



At our lurid old sea-visions of the Indies and 
Cathay. 
" They are ghosts of dead rovfiances^'' 
Hoot the sirens — " dead romfiances — 
Ghosts of obsolete romances, that are doubt- 
ful as can be — 
Just the dreams of drunken sailors — 
Paunchy, roaring, grog-shop sailors! — 
Yet their painted slut Adventure, did she lure 
ye out to sea? " 



[56] 



THE MISANTHROPE 

My feet are set on lonely roads that shun the 

weary towns, 
I fence my rugged pastures on the freeland of 

the downs ; 
The wind that treads the barren sweep of des- 
erts and of seas 
Is my servant at the sowing, and my confidant 

at ease. 
Comes a whisper in the gloaming — comes a 

shouting at the morn — 
" Brother, sleep," or " Brother, waken ! " — lest 

his brother be forlorn ; 
And I hear him through the Babel of the human 

monkey-clan — 
" O the Gods were surely weary when they 

stooped to make a Man ! " 

And yet I may not laugh away the sordidness 
and sham, 

Or join the clever cynics with a poisoned epi- 
gram; 

" The howling of the tempest drowns the yap- 
ping of the mob — " 

If ye drop a jewelled dagger, does the tinkle 
drown a sob? 

O ye " masters of creation," with your " towers 
to the stars " — 

[57] 



See ye not the grinning terror 'neath the tinsel 

of your wars? 
— But the whisper ! " Brother — brother! 

Ape YOU, too, the monkey-clan? 
Pity — for the Gods were weary when they 

stooped to make a Man! " 



[58] 



THE DEPARTURE 

(Typhoon Weather) 

In the west is a funeral-flame, 

In the east is a festal flare, 
Where the skies rejoice at the rise of the moon 

And grieve at the sun's despair — 
Titans in pride and shame, 

Red targe to blood-red targe — 
The sea lies thralled by a devil's rune 

Silent from marge to marge. 

A ship's black bulk between, 

And the smoke-flag drifting low — 
For the air droops dead as a love-sigh breathed 

A thousand years ago. 
The bare masts lifting lean 

Nod to a slate-drab sky. 
And the dull stars peer like eyes mist-wreathed 

Watching an old love die. 

Out to the gloom of the sea ! 

The wash of the wake breaks white, 
And the shore-boats lift on a ribbon of fire 

That slashes the robe of night. 
Ah, Heart, may we yet win free. 

Till the hearse-plume palm-fringe fades, 
And drown our dream of a lost desire 

In the wind-whipped blue of the Trades ? 

[59] 



Heart, may we yet win free 
From the spell of the sunlit sea. 
From the lure of the long delights 
Of our dear dead island-nights. 
From the sea-fire's sorcery-flare. 
And the hold limbs flashing hare. 
From the full hreast's sohhing heave. 
And the dark hair's tangled weave — 
From the magic and mystery 
Of our island-dream of the sea — 
Heart, may we yet wi/n free? 



[60] 



PROPEMPTIKON 

Out by the rim of the sea, on the grey sand- 
reaches, 

The wind plays a desolate dirge on the harp of 
the beaches ; 

The crests of the wind-bitten dunes are stream- 
ing to leeward. 

Aping the smoulder of spindrift whirling from 
seaward ; 

The blades) of the sere beach-grass are alive with 
the patter 

Of myriad air-driven feet of the sands as they 
scatter. 

And far on the steely horizon a topsail is gleam- 
ing, 

Fading to southward to skylands of drifting 
and dreaming. 

Topsails that flicker and falter, then, suddenly 
bolder. 

Droop in the sea, and are hid by the loom of her 
shoulder. 

Leaving me sad 'mid the ashes and embers of 
passion 

That mock with their drabness the Dawn-Wiz- 
ard leaping to fashion 

Flame-towered, pennanted glories — whose fin- 
gers bedizen 

[61J 



With masquerade-tatters of splendour the vir- 
gin horizon, 

Till lo — comes the King of the Masque — and 
with Puritan scorning 

Homeward I go like a ghost in the blaze of the 
morning. 



[62] 



DOSTA ! 

(Gypsy Song) 

With the sun in the sky 

And the wind in the grasses, 

The flash of an eye 

And the laughter of lasses, 

With dawn on the road 

And a light shoulder-load — 

Though the going be smooth or the go- 
ing be rough, 

Dost a! It is enough ! 

With a star and a moon 

And a luck with the weather, 

The lilt of a tune 

And the dew on the heather, 

With wine and a friend 

At the gay journey's end — 

Though the going be smooth or the go- 
ing be rough. 

Dost a! It is enough ! 



[63] 



TO A HALF-BRED MARE THAT DIED 

Feet in the dark that are more than human, 

Following light on the night-hid trail — 
Grace that passeth the grace of woman, 

Ears alert for the master's hail — 
Have you forgotten me, then, in the Shadow, 

O dear bay mare with the mane flung free? 
Or say, does a neigh from the pasture-meadow 

Cry, " Mount, and over the hills with me ''? 

There's a loss that is dire as the loss of brother 

That the world has ordered may scarce be 
wept, 
For grief for a horse is a grief to smother. 

To slay with a jest, if your face be kept ! 
O pass untroubled that empty bridle 

That hangs like a corpse on the stable wall — 
Though the road be dull and the heart beat idle, 

'Twas a horse — let that be the end of it 
all. . . . 

There's a trail that follows the sun-rich valleys, 

Looping the hills to a haunted sea — 
There's a beat of a hoof where the woodland 
alleys 

Stretch to an Arcady far and free ; 
And the lilting of long-dead song and banter 

Drifts to my ears with an old surprise — 
O mare, have you sorrow for life, who canter, 

A shade, on the pastures of Paradise? 
[64] 



Dawns that we greeted on cloud-hung highlands, 

(Dizzy the ways, but your feet were sure) 
Hills that lifted like fog-wrapped islands. 

Snaring the heart with their distant lure — 
May I forget them? Or find them, lonely. 

All for the brush of a wind-whipped mane? 
Peace ! For a mare is a mare, that only — 

Dead, can ye saddle or sit her again? 

Only a horse . . . but my heart's convictions 

Ever have whispered of kindly Fates, 
And I hear, in the face of the priest's predic- 
tions, 

The ghost-mare stamp at the darksome Gates. 
A rattle of hooves, and as lane and byway 

Tempted us once, let the trackless stars ! 
Till the Tollman Peter, who guards the high- 
way. 

Hark to a whinny, and — loosen the bars ! 

Feet in the dark that are more than human. 

Following light on the night-hid trail — 
Grace that passeth the grace of woman, 

Ears alert for the master's hail — 
Is it a vision, the shape in the meadow, 

O dear bay mare with the mane flung free — 
Or say, does a ghost from the After-Shadow 

Cry, " Mounts and over the Dark with me "F 



[65] 



THE PENALTIES 

A Fool once danced with Fate on Sorrow's bier, 
And found Remorse beside him, led by Fear: 
The jester, pallid, cried " Excuse — excuse — 
I was a Fool, because I might not choose ! 
Yet I repent. Forgive me ! See, I pray — 
Lo, I have sinned, but Ye have shown the Way." 

StUly though he clasped their knees, and prayed 

to SorroWy 
Remorse gave Yesterday, and Fear To-morrow. 

A brother Fool dragged Sorrow from his 

hearse — 
Cast out the grim corpse like an emptied 

purse — 
" Lo, I have drawn my wage, and spent it well," 
He cried — " Now let me weep, and win my Hell. 
For I would grieve." He laughed, and stooped 

to hear 
What words the blind Remorse should speak for 

Fear : 

Remorse turned groping; dumb Fear followed 
after. 

Leaving the Fool alone with scourgeman Laugh- 
ter. 



[66] 



THE TRUE MAGIC 

The beauty that men seek is half a dream — 
Where'er we wander, yet it lies afar ; 
It touches with its wand a setting star, 

It stirs the ripple of an ebbing stream. 

And though we run beyond the dawning-gleam. 
Or kneel to worship at an altar bright, 
We may not know the soul of its delight. 

Or more than marvel at its palest beam. 

And yet in visions men have lived to see — 
Aye, dared the stunning glories of its face — 
And from their wonder wrung the skill to 
trace 

In flaming glyphs a dream of majesty — 
To strike a stone to rapture, or to grace 

A sorrow with a robe of melody. 



[67] 



THE CHILDREN'S FLEETS 

Beneath a kindly sun 

There winks a mighty sea ; 
Across the waters run 

Our fleets of fantasy — 
The frigates grim and tall, 

The schooners low and black — 
From trireme out of Gaul 

To skiff of Sarawak. 

The lily-pads that drift 

Beneath the summer breeze, 
Are magic isles that lift 

Their peaks on tropic seas. 
The scum that roofs the pond 

With flaunt of filmy seed 
Is spelled by fairy wand 

To thick Sargasso weed. 

Ye say the lofty ships, 

Our barks and pirate-brigs, 
Are naught but whittled chips 

And stripped and riven twigs ? 
From reefed sea-battered isle 

To harbor-city spires. 
The fancies that beguile 

Our hungry dream-desires? 



[68] 



Ye dare not tell us so ! 

We may not halt to hear, 
While crowd the keels below 

Our thronged and bannered pier. 
Ah, pitiful ! — to wake 

With shadow-ridden eyes — 
Nor know the dawns that break 

On shores of Paradise! 



[69] 



THE SMOKE-FLAG 

(Engine Choral) 

Distant, dim, on the earth's far rim where the 
breezes shout to the fulmar free. 

Black I creep o'er the roadless deep on my long 
adventure from quay to quay — 

Flaunt my cloak of the bannered smoke to the 
windy vaults of an empty sea. 

South or North ye may fling me forth, O Man, 
my lord, who is still my slave — 

Slave who feeds me, and lord who leads me, and 
god that laughs to a nameless grave — 

East or West as your heart's unrest shall 
scourge ye craven or lure ye brave. 

Flag o' dreams — when the red sun gleams and 
the foremast black like a furnace-bar 

Cuts its face as the swift keels race to the sun- 
set-land of the evening star ; 

Flag o' Fate — when the blind sea's hate shall 
have haled ye down from a hopeless war ! 



[70] 



SONNET * 

TO TIMOTHY DWIGHT 

(President of Yale University 1886-1899) 

There is a splendor in the wheeling years 

That lights the soul with myriad sanctities — 

There is a magic in old memories, 

And a dear joy in half-forgotten tears ; 

So, when the long light trails adown the skies 
And lends new glories to the garden's flowers. 
Come with the years the golden-footed hours, 
And the fresh insight of unclouded eyes. 

Youth, I would sing ye sermons on your pride ! 
His is the Youth-in-Age that lives forever ; 
An holier strength than yours, that wavers 
never. 
That has known Life, yet stoops not to deride. 
Hark to the lesson, novice! Learn the 

truth — 
Age ye as he, and win to deeper youth. 



* Reprinted from the 1914) Class Book. 

[71] 



THE PHILANDERER 

The moon was a gypsy's penny 

Meshed in the hair of Night, 
The road was a scarf of silver 

And the river a robe of light — 
And was it the dream while waiting, 

Or was it She when she came, 
That turned the thought to a rapture 

And the blood to a pulsing flame? 

'Twas She, ye say — but ye weary. 

Be the maiden never so fair! 
'Tis but in the dream ye're constant. 

And ye may not clasp her there. 
So haste ye not the fulfilling, 

Lest the gold of the dream be dross — 
Lest heads be bowed with the sorrow 

And hearts be dead with the loss. 

And shall ye turn from the meeting 

In the flare of the white moon-flood. 
And shall ye flee from the kisses 

Of the soft lips red as blood? 
Ah, shame ! Do ye fear for the morrow ? 

Love, love, while the dream be new — 
On the chance that ye win to a trystmg 

When ye -find that your dream is true! 



[72] 



RODRIPEN 

THE QUEST 
From the Bomrniy 

I SOUGHT mj love 'mid the haze of the highway 
dust, 
Where the tilted van crept slow in the noon- 
day sun — 
For a ringlet stirred at the touch of the zeph- 
yr's gust, 
And I dreamed that my heart was won. 

I sought my love where the hillside broke to the 
bay, 
(O long sea-road to the land of my heart's 
desire!) 
For her eyes were bright with the mora, and her 
cheeks were gay. 
And the dawn was her altar-fire. 

O the roads are marked with the print of her 
dancing feet. 
And I find her smile on the lips of a hundred 
maids, 
But she hides afar where the stars and the 
mountains meet 
And laughs at the slow decades — 



[73] 



Till the world is sown with the ash of my scat- 
tered camps 
And my heart is chill with the breath of the 
sunset blast — 
Yet still in the Dark is the flare of the fairy 
lamps 
That shall call me to Love at last. 



[74] 



TO A POET WHO DIED YOUNG 

Though thy life seem as the day, 

And thy death the gloaming-grey, 

Though thy spirit loose its hold 

With the fading sunset-gold, 

Ere thy song be half begun 

Or thy fairy cities won 

Or thy web of vision spun — 

Never weep. 

Where thou sowest, thou wilt reap, 

In the Land beyond the Sleep. 

Thou wilt find a fresher tongue 

For thy lyrics yet unsung. 

And thy hand a wiser pen, 

Till thy music sweep again 

Flaming through the lives of men ! 

Never sigh; 

Thinkest Those behind the sky 

Made a Poet but to die.^^ 



[75] 



LYRICS FROM THE SCHERIAN 



THE OUTLANDER'S SONG 

Ye who dwell in Fairyland, 

Half a world away, 
Know ye sting of night's tears 

Drying with the day? 
Though the draught of Pleasure 

Be ever yours to drain, 
Children of the Dawn-glow, 

Learn the bliss of Pain ! 

Ye who dwell in Fairyland, 

Know ye naught but joys? 
Press ye from your vine's wealth 

Wine that never cloys? 
Win, O win to Sorrow 

With the fading leaf — 
Children of the wise Gods, 

Pray the gift of Grief! 

Ye who dwell in Fairyland. 

Dancing in the sun, 
Lift ye now my rue-cup 

When the wine is done! 
Idle falls the laughter, 

Closer clings the hand — 
Children of the April, 

O weep and understand! 

[79] 



II 
THE SONG OF THE HARBOR-MAIDENS 

Lilt the music ne'er so featly 

From the throbbing lyre, 
Drop the veiling lid discreetly 

On the glances' fire ! 
Heed the grey wife and her warning, 
Daughters of the jewelled morning. 
Though the love-word linger sweetly 

On the lips of young desire ! 

Lo, the gaunt sea-battered galleys 

Fresh from Scylla's den ! 
Hark ye, down the woodland alleys 

Rings the mirth of men ! 
Till the parted leaves discover 
Youth and maiden, maid and lover, 
And the fading color rallies. 

Dims and rallies, pales again ! 

Tresses black as plume of raven. 

Lips as red as flame. 
Heed ye how ye seek the haven, 

Lest ye win to shame ! 
Ah, but glimpsed ye 'neath the arbor 
Painted headsails in the harbor? 
Age is but a sorry craven. 

And is laughing Love to blame? 

[80] 



Ill 
SERENADE 

Love, I have furrowed far my shifting trails 
By witches' isles that swim in haunted seas, 

And glimpsed the silver of thy galley's sails 
Rounding the capes of drowsy Cyclades — 

Followed and found thee, mirage-born of dream, 
Wrought of the flame of dawn and wine of 
dew — 

Waking the world to wonder with thy gleam, 
Soothing with petal-hands to dream anew. 

Hail the Releaser! Lo, enchanted shores 
Rise at the tilting of His flagon-rims. 

Till I am mazed as foam-thresh from my oars. 
Drunk with the marble lyric of thy limbs ! 



[81] 



IV 

ECHO SONG 

Maiden with the sunny eyes, 

And the south-wind in thy tresses, 
Though the glades of Paradise 
With their haunted wildernesses 
Lure to follow, 
Never heed! 

Shun the lilting syrinx-reed! 
Only sorrow 
Cometh after 

All its flood of joyous laughter, 
And though dear the call may be, 
Maiden, yet be free ! 

Little Mistress Never-Care, 

Weaving in thy fairy dances. 
Hast thou yet the will to dare 
All our ages-old romances? 
But the calling — 
Must thou go 

Where the faun-note flutters low? 
Wait the falling 
Echo after — 

" Love is more than joy and laughter. 
And though dear the call may he. 
Maiden, yet he free! " 

[82] 



ENVOY 

For gift of ruddy sunset-light on sea and barren 

strand^ 
For rapture of the summer dawn, and heart to 

understand. 
For freedom of the gracious Earth, for life and 

its reward — 
To whomsoever Thou mayst be, my gratitude, O 

Lord ! 

And if there be a Journey's-end more joyous than 

the way. 
And if there be an Afterglow more splendid than 

the day, 
A canvas of Eternity when human colors dim — 
Whatever Artist-God there be, my gratitude to 

Him! 



■fBiiiiei , 



